Rwanda agrees to accept 120 new refugees
CGTN
A plane carrying the first batch of 66 migrants just before departing from Misrata Airport for Kigali on 24 September, 2019./ UNHCR

A plane carrying the first batch of 66 migrants just before departing from Misrata Airport for Kigali on 24 September, 2019./ UNHCR

At least 120 refugees are expected to be evacuated to Rwanda from Libya, where the United Nations says they are exposed to violence, sexual abuse and torture in detention centres.

Rwanda is currently hosting 189 African refugees and asylum-seekers. The group was evacuated from Libya where thousands of others are still languishing in  gross human rights abuses in detention centres.

They found themselves in these centres after a failed bid to across the Mediterranean Sea to European countries, where they hoped to secure a better life.

Those who are evacuated to Rwanda are hosted at Gashora Transit Centre in Bugesera District, Eastern Province.

Most of them are from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, and the rest are from Ethiopia.

The first group of 66 refugees arrived in Rwanda in September, while the second group of 123 arrived in the country in early October as part of the commitment Rwanda made to contribute to saving the struggling migrants in the North African country.

On Wednesday, a UNHCR official told the media during the tour of the camp where the refugees are hosted that the organization was planning to evacuate "another group of 120 refugees in November" to Rwanda.

Elise Villechalane, the Spokesperson of UNCHR Rwanda, told the media that that's the target they had given themselves.

Rwanda, which at some point also had over 2 million of its citizens displaced after the 1994 genocide, signed a deal with UNHCR in September that is meant to help resettle people detained while trying to reach Europe.

Villechalane of UNHCR said that around 3,000 migrants are still thought to be in detention in Libya, where authorities are trying to close the route across the Mediterranean Sea that has seen thousands of people perish trying to reach Europe.

She called on other countries to follow Rwanda's example.

Source(s): Reuters